TEAM HISTORY
The Denver Nuggets are an NBA team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the Denver Larks in 1967 as a charter franchise of the American Basketball Association (ABA), but changed its name to Rockets before the first season. It changed its name again to the Nuggets in 1974. After the name change, the Nuggets played for the final ABA Championship title in 1976, losing to the New York Nets.
The team has had some periods of success, qualifying for the ABA Playoffs for all seasons from 1967 to the 1976 ABA playoffs where they lost in the finals. The team joined the NBA in 1976 after the ABA–NBA merger and qualified for the NBA playoffs in nine consecutive seasons in the 1980s and ten consecutive seasons from 2004 to 2013. However, they have not made an appearance in a championship round since their last year in the ABA; as such, they are also the only of the four surviving former ABA teams to have never reached the NBA Finals. The Nuggets play their home games at Ball Arena, which they share with the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League (NLL).
In the 2022–23 season, the Nuggets secured the top seed in the Western Conference with 53 wins and 29 losses, two games ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies. The Nuggets defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 4–1 in the first round of the 2023 playoffs, before defeating the Phoenix Suns 4–2 in the Conference Semifinals. The Nuggets' playoff dominance continued in the Conference Finals; spearheaded by outstanding play from Jokić, the team swept the Los Angeles Lakers in four games to secure their first ever NBA Finals appearance. This also marked the first time that the Nuggets had beaten the Lakers in a playoff series (having previously been 0–7 against them), as well as the first playoff series sweep in franchise history. In their first NBA Finals in franchise history, on June 12, 2023, the Nuggets would beat the Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat 4–1 to win their first NBA championship, with Jokić winning the Western Conference Finals and NBA Finals MVP.
